It’s a quality interview that touches on the important points of the situation. The only problem is that Gracie contradicts things he said earlier in the week and plays the blame deflection game too.

During the course of the interview, Gracie asks, “Why is Dana White punishing the fans?” He says White should fine Diaz a hefty sum, then makes light of the situation, saying, “All he did was miss a press conference. I mean seriously? Did one fan in this world even care?”

I’m honestly shaking my head right now.

For starters, this goes against things that Gracie said on Wednesday when all this drama went down.

Speaking with MMA Fighting, the grandson of Carlos Gracie, Sr. offered the following:

“I told Dana [White] he was right to have done that”

“You can’t just not show up and [not] tell anyone anything.”

“He just turned his phone off and acted like a little kid. It just doesn’t cut it.”

I get that you calm down a little in the hours after such a high anxiety, big drama situation, but Gracie is 100-percent contradicting his earlier thoughts in this subsequent interview. Wednesday he thought Dana White was doing the right thing, now it’s White who is to blame for not giving the fans what they want?

Diaz robbed the fans of the chance to see him fight for the UFC welterweight title by shirking his responsibilities. As much as Gracie thinks the press conference and media obligations of his client and student are not really all that important—a different stance than he took on Wednesday by the way—the UFC thinks otherwise.

I get that Gracie is simply trying to take up for his fighter and turn the spotlight on someone else here; I understand that he wants to protect and defend Diaz. But here’s the thing: what good does that do Diaz in the long run?

The more people keep making excuses for him, the more this kind of crap is going to continue happening. You simply can’t shirk your responsibilities and then say, “What’s the big deal?”

At some point, someone has to make Diaz step up and be accountable for his actions. He’s a 28-year-old grown-ass man, who earns a great deal of money to do what he loves for a living; few of us are that fortunate.

Does he hate some of the obligations that come with his job? Absolutely, but who doesn’t? Constantly making excuses for him, trying to cast the blame elsewhere and spinning the situation in Diaz’s favour doesn’t do him any good in the long run.

There is going to come a time when he is going to run out of chances.

If no one holds him accountable for his actions or works with him to get to the root of whatever it is that makes him believe this kind of behaviour is acceptable, the issues will persist even when the opportunities are gone, and then what? Is everyone else still to blame?

There are plenty of places he could go fight where he’d have zero media obligations. The trouble is none of them pay nearly as much as the UFC. If you don’t want to fulfill your obligations, don’t sign up for them in the first place; it’s as simple as that.

But Diaz wants the big payday, the marquee bout, and Gracie wants that for his client and student. The problem is that neither Diaz or Gracie are willing to step forward, accept responsibility for what happened Wednesday, and put the spin hold on pause.

Everyone else is to blame. It’s not really a big deal.

Wrong.

Dana White isn’t punishing the fans; Nick Diaz did by putting White in the position he did on Wednesday afternoon.

Instead of trying to deflect blame and make other people the focus of this fiasco, maybe Gracie should work with his student to find out what lies at the root of these issues? Stop making excuses for him, blaming Dana White, the timing of the press conference, or questioning the importance of the event in the first place.

Get him help if he needs help.

If he’s just this irresponsible and this dismissive of the obligations that come with fighting at his current pay grade, maybe it’s time to reconsider where he’s fighting. No one forced Diaz into the main event at UFC 137; he’s been lobbying for it himself for the better part of a year.

He got his opportunity, couldn’t handle the responsibility, and lost it as a result. There is no one else to blame for that than Diaz himself.

All Cesar Gracie is trying to do is save face, and it’s not working… at least not with me.

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